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Title: Aeschylus: Eumenides by Aeschylus, Alan H. Sommerstein ISBN: 0-521-28430-9 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 09 November, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Eumenides Shumenides
Comment: Aeschylus' The Eumenides is the third part of the Orestia Trilogy, recounting the murder of king Agamemnon and the blood bath that comes afterward. Personally I wouldn't have read it if I didn't have to (I'm required to by my English teacher). It was one of the hardest things I've had to read in a long time, and even wen I got the jist of what was going on it still didn't flatter me. If you really want to enjoy what the play has to offer I would recommend seeing it in a theatre, not trying to read it and understand it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb Greek text and commentary.
Comment: (Note: just in case you don't know this: this edition is in ANCIENT GREEK, not English. The only English is in the [voluminous] notes, not a translation.)
I found this edition of the third play of Aeschylus' Oresteia very fine and very complete, and I was able to read all of the Eumenides with it -- and I am only in my second year of Greek (although my dedication may be above average). Sommerstein hits all the notes and remains balanced. The emendations are eminently well-defended; the meters are clear; the notes are thick and well-written. The cross-referencing with lines from other Greek literature is exhaustive and complete; much of the cross-referencing to different articles and works by modern authors impresses as well, with one caveat below.
Depending on which kind of an Oresteia scholar you are, you may become frustrated with this book. In his notes, Sommerstein evades or fudges many of the gender issues that are seen by some as essential to the play. This is done with the utmost in skill and tact, though, so if you didn't know (or couldn't read or think) you might think there were no gender issues in the play. Hand-in-hand with this fact, he ignores important American research on the Oresteia (done by Froma Zeitlin, for example) and does subscribe to a view of the Oresteia with which I have great sympathy, but that some may find naively positivistic or progressive. To wit, Sommerstein believes the Oresteia to be about joy, triumph, and a new era.
Overall, regardless of these matters this book is very fine. I would certainly use it were I to teach a reading class on the play.
Rating: 5
Summary: Orestes asks the goddess Athena for justice
Comment: The Orestia trilogy is the tragic story of the responsibility of a blood debt. In the first play, "Agamemnon," the title character returns victoriously from Troy to be murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, who having sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia so that a fair wind would blow the Achean army to Troy. In the middle play, "The Choephori" ("The Libation Bearers"), Orestes comes to Argos to avenge his father by killing his mother. After doing the bloody deed, Orestes is afflicted by madness and flees in terror from the Furies, the hideous spirits who hunt down and punish murderers. Thus the stage is set for "The Eumenides," the final play in the trilogy.
"The Eumenides" begins a few days after the end of the previous play, with Orestes seeking refuge at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. In a most unusual move for a Greek tragedy, the action then jumps ahead several years when Orestes, after years of wandering as a tormented outcast, arrives at Athens and throws himself on the mercy of the godess Athena. The Furies arrive, hot upon his heels, and demand he be punished for his act of matricide. However, Orestes insists that since he acted according to the dictates of Apollo, he is guiltless of the crime. This is a shocking declaration, especially for someone from the accursed house of Atreus. Athena convenes a special court to hear the case against Orestes, but they are unable to reach a verdict, leaving it to the goddess to decide his fate.
Ultimately, the Orestia is a celebration of the Athenian civilization that had created a democratic government and a system of trial by jury. That such a system could be perverted might be true, as the case of Socrates strongly suggests, but Aeschylus is comparing the system to the past to draw a strong distinction between vengeance and justice. The Orestia has great importance because of this theme, and not simply because it is the only surviving example of a Greek tragic trilogy. The climax of "The Eumenides" is rather strange for a Greek tragedy, since it ends on an exalted note of reconciliation and optimism. This is symbolized most by the transformation of the Furies into the Eumenides ("kindly ones"). But ultimately it is the Athenian legal system, where a new type of justice is tempered by mercy, that is being glorified in this triology. The tragic story of Orestes is simply the tale Aeschylus chooses to teach his lesson.
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Title: Lysias: Selected Speeches by Lysias, Christopher Carey ISBN: 0521269881 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 25 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Choephori by Garvie Aeschylus, A. F. Garvie ISBN: 019872134X Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr on Demand Pub. Date: August, 1988 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica Book III by Apollonius of Rhodes, R. L. Hunter ISBN: 0521312361 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1989 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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